


Five Hundred-Word Stories of Surviving

by mercredigirl



Category: Glee, Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons), Skulduggery Pleasant - Fandom, Teen Titans, Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Friendship/Love, Gen, Rape/Abuse, Recovery, Solidarity, Survivors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-08
Updated: 2011-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-14 13:32:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercredigirl/pseuds/mercredigirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin">Exactly What It Says On The Tin.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Hundred-Word Stories of Surviving

**Author's Note:**

> **Trigger warnings apply.**

1.

The drive takes several hours: there are no papists in this corner of Virginia. His brother is in bed, soundly, comfortably, beneath the gables of the manor. It’s Damon who won’t assimilate, Damon who’s the bad boy.

He drives in silence, chest hurting with the memory of a weight on him – silk and lace and musky scent – and cruel whispering in his ear.

He reaches the city at dawn, ring cold on his finger.

Today is Christmas Eve, ninth day of the Simbang Gabi. He thinks of a low, southern chuckle, hears Katherine in his head, and prays for absolution.

 

2.

‘China?’ she calls, at the knock on her door.

‘I’m here.’ The door creaks open. China looks dishevelled, hair a tumbled mass atop her nightgown. ‘Thunderstorm,’ comes the explanation; ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Tanith pushes herself upright, sitting awkward in her borrowed bed. ‘I was awake too. Thinking.’

Instantly China moves across the room, settles herself gently on the coverlet. ‘Do you need to talk?’ she asks carefully.

‘N-n-no.’ Tanith sits still, quiet, breathing in the presence of her friend.

China Sorrows, the assured, the composed, the beautiful, smiles. Their histories they carry like a shared secret between them.

 

3.

He has a name she doesn’t use. She’s seen it: Charles Szasz. She’s seen the files on Charles Szasz. She knows what happened to the infant Charles.

He has a name she daren’t use.

She _wouldn’t_ hurt him that way.

Instead, she stays the night, making meaningless hush noises like she would for her upset kindergarten students, stroking his hair, letting him rest his head in her lap and sob into her skin.

‘It’s alright,’ she murmurs. ‘It’ll get better,’ she lies.

She knows this circumstance. Knows it’s not okay. Knows it doesn’t get better.

‘Vic,’ she says. ‘Victor. Q.’

 

4.

There’s a word for what Puck did. It comes to Quinn morosely, as she sits in her bedroom not sure for how much longer she can stay in her parents’ home. The icon of the Sacred Heart watches her almost accusingly from the wall.

Quinn quickly thinks instead of His mother, who would have been, not two thousand years ago, a frightened teenaged girl as well.

But Our Lady had a choice, she tells herself, sullen.

But you don’t say no to your god.

But she _could_ have said no.

Quinn thinks of Puck, and inebriation, and the word rape.

 

5.

They’re divvying up the battlefield, almost without thought, snapping curtly into communicators from on high, when Raven says, calmly, ‘Dr Light is mine.’

Her skin is still burning from the brands Slade etched into it, and her head is buzzing with low-level supernatural telegraphy, but Raven’s memory is long, and she can be casually cruel in a way that few others are – Shayera, maybe, and Helena, and occasionally, _occasionally_ Wally.

Green Arrow thinks a moment of Dr Light’s insult, thinks of Shado’s gasping, of silence and shame.

He’s not mission leader. He turns to glance at Nightwing.

‘Sure,’ Raven is told.

**Author's Note:**

> For those unfamiliar with all these canons:
> 
>  **Damon Salvatore** , as he appears here, is from my [Deeds are in Men](http://archiveofourown.org/series/5859) series, that is, Filipino-USAmerican. The Simbang Gabi, or Dawn Mass, consists of nine consecutive Advent masses and novenas preceding Christmas. It is a common belief that if all nine are attended, God will grant the petitioner one wish.
> 
>  **Tanith Low was captured and tortured in _Dark Days_. In the same series, China Sorrows is depicted as ‘irresistibly attractive’, a little like _Misfits_ ’ Alisha.**
> 
>  ** **Victor Sage** , if you need to know anything about him, was the prototype for _Watchmen_ ’s Rorscharch. Childhood abuse was implied. **Helena Bertinelli** was also implied to have been abused as a child (either raped and/or neglected).**
> 
>  **Quinn Fabray** , from _Glee_ , was presented as ‘seduced’ while drunk by Noah Puckerman. There is a word for that, as shown here.
> 
>  **Raven** was born because of the ritual abuse of her mother, Arella. In the animated canon, two scenes – one with Dr Light, and one with Slade Wilson/Deathstroke – have been read almost unanimously as portrayals of assault. In the comics canon, **Green Arrow** was raped by Shado, mocked by Dr Light, and (!!!) blamed by Black Canary. Nightwing was raped by Tarantula and the scene was almost immediately retconned as consensual.
> 
> My fandoms are problematic. :(


End file.
